Free business email in Italy: name@tuaazienda.it alongside your PEC

Every Italian company and most partite IVA already have a PEC, because the law requires one. Many then assume the email question is settled and keep sending quotes and customer replies from a Gmail address, or worse, from the PEC itself. PEC is for legal notices; it is not the address a customer should see on a quote. A .it domain costs a few euros a year, the ordinary mailboxes on it can be free, and the setup is four DNS records.

Quick answer

Register tuaazienda.it at an Italian registrar such as Aruba, Register.it or OVHcloud, keep your existing PEC for official communications, and create a free OquMail workspace for the everyday mailboxes: info@, amministrazione@, ordini@ and one per person. Add the domain, paste four DNS records at the registrar, click Verify, create the mailboxes, and connect Outlook or your phone with the settings below.

Business email and PEC are two different things

PEC, Posta Elettronica Certificata, gives a message the legal value of a registered letter, and companies and professionals registered with the Registro Imprese must have one as their domicilio digitale. It is the right channel for the Agenzia delle Entrate, the INPS, courts and formal notices between companies. It is the wrong channel for everything else: PEC addresses are typically on the provider's domain rather than yours, a PEC-to-ordinary-mail message loses its certified status, and customers find a PEC address on a quote odd. Keep the PEC, publish the ordinary address.

• PEC: legal notices, tax authority, formal disputes; one address, kept with the PEC provider
• Ordinary business email on your .it domain: quotes, orders, customer replies, suppliers, job applicants; one mailbox per person plus role addresses
• Electronic invoices go through the SDI, not through either mailbox; the customer copy and all follow-up go by ordinary email

Choosing your domain: .it or .com

The .it domain is run by Registro .it at the IIT-CNR in Pisa and is open to residents and companies in the EU and EEA, which covers every Italian business. It is the ending Italian customers expect. Registrars include Aruba, Register.it, OVHcloud, Serverplan and Keliweb, all billing in euros.

• .it: the default for Italian companies and professionals; low yearly renewal
• .com: useful for exporters and tech companies; pair it with the .it so an Italian customer who guesses the address still reaches you
• .eu: fine as an extra; rarely worth using as the main address
• Take the domain without the registrar email bundle; those mailboxes rarely have DKIM set up

Step by step

1. Register tuaazienda.it at an Italian registrar with your partita IVA or codice fiscale. Pay by card or SEPA; the domain is live within minutes.
2. Create a free OquMail workspace at oqumail.com. No card.
3. Add the domain in the dashboard and copy the four DNS records.
4. In the registrar DNS panel (Aruba: Gestione DNS; Register.it: DNS avanzato; OVHcloud: Zona DNS) add the MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records and delete the pre-set MX.
5. Click Verify. The live DNS check shows anything still missing.
6. Create mailboxes: info@, amministrazione@, ordini@ and one per person, up to 15 with 5 GB each. Leave the PEC where it is.
7. Send a test from webmail and add the account to Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail or the phone mail app with the settings below.

The four DNS records OquMail needs

Aruba and Register.it packages pre-set MX records for their own mailboxes. Delete them before adding mail.oqumail.com, and keep only one TXT starting with v=spf1 on the root.

• MX — host @, value mail.oqumail.com, priority 10
• SPF (TXT at @) — v=spf1 MX (Mail Exchanger — where incoming email is delivered) a:mail.oqumail.com ~all
• DKIM (TXT at your selector ._domainkey) — v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=… (the exact key is shown in your OquMail dashboard)
• DMARC (TXT at _dmarc) — v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com

OquMail connection settings

• Incoming (IMAP): mail.oqumail.com, port 993, SSL/TLS
• Outgoing (SMTP): mail.oqumail.com, port 587, STARTTLS
• Username: your full email address (you@yourdomain.com)
• Password: the same password you use for OquMail webmail

What it costs

The domain is a yearly fee in euros, and the PEC stays with its provider at its usual small yearly fee. The ordinary email is free: OquMail's free plan has no card step and includes 15 mailboxes, 3 domains, 5 GB per mailbox, webmail, IMAP and SMTP, delivery logs and a send API. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 are per user per month, which a three-person studio or a ditta individuale does not need for ordinary mailboxes.

Pitfalls common in Italy

• Using the PEC as the everyday address. Replies from ordinary mailboxes may be refused by PEC providers, and customers find it strange.
• registrar (the company where you bought your domain, e.g. Namecheap or GoDaddy)-bundled mailboxes with no DKIM: quotes land in junk at corporate clients on Microsoft 365.
• Choosing SSL on port 587 in Outlook or Thunderbird. It must be STARTTLS.
• TIM, Vodafone, WindTre, Fastweb and Iliad consumer connections block outbound port 25. Port 587 works on all of them.
• Accented characters in mailbox names. Keep addresses plain ASCII (nicolo@, not an accented form) and put the correct name in the display name.
• Forgetting to update the Registro Imprese contact email, the website footer and the Google Business Profile with the new ordinary address.

Common questions

Does OquMail replace my PEC?

No. PEC is a certified service with legal value and must stay with a PEC provider. OquMail provides the ordinary mailboxes on your domain that handle everything else.

Does it work with Outlook and my phone?

Yes. Add an IMAP account with the settings above in Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail or the Gmail app, using your full address as the username.

What are the limits?

15 mailboxes, 3 domains, 5 GB per mailbox, no expiry. Extra mailboxes are added on request without touching DNS.

Want to see how your own domain is set up? Use the free SPF checker, DMARC checker and MX lookup: they run in your browser and store nothing.